Raphael Imbert

Raphaël Imbert – Music Is My Hope (Bonus Track Version) (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:12:53 minutes | 729 MB | Genre: Blues, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Jazz Village

Album after album, Raphaël Imbert is writing a long and peerless musical novel. With Music Is My Hope, the saxophonist tackles jazz by different routes. Including by way of spirituality, and the spirit of the blues. With different voices hailing from far-flung places, Imbert is building bridges between the genres, the better to underline the deep cross-pollination that exists within the south of the USA. This time, Imbert invites Marion Rampal, Aurore Imbert, Manu Barthélémy and Big Ron Hunter to sing reflections and revolts, the holy and the political alike. Above all, this celebration of a history and a heritage never comes off as saccharine. Everything here is alive! Even when Raphaël Imbert and his accomplices cover Joni Mitchell’s The Circle Game or a spiritual as famous as Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel. A straight-shooting offering which even takes in an Occitan rendition of Vaqui lo polit mes de mai… All this lively, highly-symbolic material is magnified by the saxophonist’s grand design, which he worked up with his virtuoso musical wingmen: Pierre-François Blanchard on keyboards, Jean-Luc Di Fraya on drums, Pierre Durand and Thomas Weirich on guitars. There can be some chaotic moments here or there, like in a fight; and other moments have the solemnity of a confession. But however they play it, it is always spirited. Magnificent.

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Raphaël Imbert – Music Is My Home: Act 1 (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:05:31 minutes | 671 MB | Genre: Blues, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Jazz Village

Along with iconic American musicians – Big Ron Hunter, Alabama Slim, Leyla McCalla, Sarah Quintana… and young French artists, mostly from Compagnie Nine Spirit, the saxophonist suddenly evolves into an ethno-musicologist, taking us on a journey to the American “Deep South”. With his unique understanding of groove, he takes us to the heart of Creole and the current state of our ever- evolving oral cultures. He also considers our links with blues, jazz and our roots in a playful and original adventure. He expresses personal experience and musical contacts in tune with this fertile musical ground. That is the full meaning of the improvised musical welcome brought up to date here in Music is My Home.

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Raphael Imbert, Johan Farjot & Guests – Les 1001 Nuits du Jazz – Live au Bal Blomet (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 55:48 minutes | 639 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Music Development Company

Initiated by Guillaume Cornut as soon as the Bal Blomet reopened in 2017, a mythical room linked to the legend of Joséphine Baker and one of the first European jazz clubs, The 1001 Nights of Jazz give the opportunity to saxophonist Raphaël Imbert and pianist Johan Farjot to tell us another story of jazz. A story that is not a matter for specialists, initiates or purists, but rather a tale that is addressed to all to better appreciate the mysteries of multiple and creolized music. Surrounded at each session by new guests, prestigious musicians – Anne Paceo, Daniel Humair, Hugh Coltman… – Raphaël and Johan invite us to a “conference” through the stories of a music that built our time, and that never stops not to reinvent yourself.

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Raphaël Imbert – Live au Tracteur (2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 53:30 minutes | 523 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Zig-Zag Territoires

Raphaël Imbert is a jazz saxophonist, conductor, composer, and professor of French music. He is founder and artistic director of the Nine Spirit Company. As self-made musician, Raphaël Imbert takes an atypical path in the world of jazz and improvised music. After his New York Project, which excited much attention in the press in 2009, Raphaël Imbert again draws inspiration from the Afro-American tradition and his personal experiences based on cultural exchange and his own Provençal roots.

On his return from a month of musical exploration of ‘Dixieland’, that other key environment of American jazz, and his research into the workings of improvisation (IMPROTECH – CNRS, EHESS, LAHIC, IRCAM), Raphaël Imbert took up residence at ‘Le Tracteur’, a restaurant and exchange forum in the Upper Provence countryside, in order to record with his quartet his new suite, ‘USUITE’ , a document of his journey to the American South, with Joe Martin, Gerald Cleaver, and Stéphane Caracci on vibraphone.

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